Guess nobody wants to start this thread. Pangos going for the school record for 3's. Zag fans are pretty confident of a 25 to 30 point beatdown.

GU is shooting 53% from the field this year. If the Pilots don't better their 30% effort against SMC, the Zag fans will be about right. Basically, every Pilot is going to need to play a strong game to be competitive. That means Voldy is going to have to score some points; he's only got 6 total in the last three games. Rev said Monday he needs to get chances from offensive rebounds; tough challenge against Karnowski and Sabonis. Alec has to be more efficient. He's getting his points at the FT line, but he's only 6 of 26 shooting from the field his last three games. Bobby is only 3 of 12 from 3pt range the last three games. He won't get much space to shoot, but we'll need something from him. Bryce needs to repeat his SMC performance, and Kevin needs to be in control on offense, take what they give and not force his game, while not being a liability on defense. Finally, Jason and Gabe need to not be awed in their first game at GU and make solid supporting contributions. Xubi needs to find a way to contribute offensively. He's playing good defense and not making too many turnovers when he subs for Alec, but he hasn't scored since getting 2 points against USF. That's 2 points in 41 minutes.

Last edited by up7587 on Wed Jan 28, 2015 6:27 pm; edited 1 time in total

Thanks for the rundown, 7587. Yes, playing the #3 in the nation would be a big test for Duke or Kansas, let alone UP.

No expectations....just go up there and play loose, free and aggressive and take what the Zags give you. Enjoy it, embrace it, and let the game be a chance to show everyone UP belongs in the top half of the WCC.

Pooh and Donald went to Spokane as freshmen and enjoyed every minute of blocking out the noise from the loud crowd and came back to Portland with the win! Portland was perfect on six free throw attempts in the final 15 seconds of that game on the way to upsetting Gonzaga 72-68 to snap a 14-game losing skid against the Bulldogs. The win also stopped Gonzaga’s 21-game home winning streak in West Coast Conference games, and halted Portland's five-game losing streak. With the win Portland improved to 3-9 in WCC games, while Gonzaga fell to 10-2 in the WCC.

Sure, the GU team in 2003 wasn't the #3 team in the nation, but believe me, this Pilots team is better then Pooh's UP team.....

THIS WEEK• Portland’s lone game this week is at No. 3 Gonzaga on Thursday night.• Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. and will be televised on ROOT Sports NW with Greg Heister and Richard Fox calling the action.• All Portland basketball games will be aired live on Sports 910 (KMTT) with pregame coverage beginning 30 minutes prior to tip-off. Bill Johnson will call the play-by-play all season long.• Live stats, audio and video links are available at www.PortlandPilots.com.• Pilot fans are encouraged to attend watch parties for all Portland road games at Buffalo Wild Wings-Lloyd District.

ABOUT NO. 3 GONZAGA• The Bulldogs (21-1, 10-0 WCC) are ranked No. 3 in both the Associated Press USA Today Coaches Polls this week.• Gonzaga’s lone loss was in overtime at Arizona (66-63), while notable wins have come against UCLA, St. John’s, SMU and Georgia.• The Bulldogs are rated No. 8 in the Jan. 28 NCAA RPI.• Gonzaga has a veteran roster that includes Kentucky transfer Kyle Wiltjer (15.8 ppg) and USC transfer Byron Wesley (10.9 ppg).• Senior PG Kevin Pangos is a four-year starter and averages 12.4 points and 4.9 assists per game.• Head coach Mark Few is in his 16th season at the helm of the Bulldogs and has led Gonzaga to the NCAA playoffs each season along with 14 WCC Championships.• Last season, Portland snapped a 20-game losing streak to Gonzaga and recorded the first win at the Chiles Center over the Bulldogs since 1996 with an 82-73 win on Jan. 9... The Pilots then overcame a 22-point deficit to take a late lead in Spokane before falling 71-66 for a season split... Gonzaga won at Portland by an 87-75 margin on Jan. 3.

As with the SMC game, this was not just a matter of the offense being shut down by GU. Yes, GU did steal the ball from us 11 times, and forced 14 turnovers. That is a credit to them.

However, in my opinion, the terrible shooting numbers were largely the result of the Pilots being bad at shooting. For what it's worth, that is also a common opinion among GU fans on their message board.

Our defense put us in a position to win the game. Our inept offense made sure that we weren't even close.

They may be the #3 team in the country but lets face facts, Gonzaga has NEVER been known for their defensive prowless. This year they are able to impose some will on other teams solely because they finally have some athletic players in key positions and the depth to do some things they havent been able to in the past. But not for a minute am I going to say that GU is ever a team that someone talks about when "shutting someone down."

Kudos for the first half energy and gameplan by Coach. Literally throwing 4 guys at a time at Karno may have looked like my sons 3rd grade AAU defense but it was effective. Then at half we got away from it and let Thomas try to body him up and that didnt work as well.

No secret that the offense wasnt clicking. Pangos locked up Alec, Wesley and Bell were effective on Kevin and it seemed we were having to start the offense too far away from the basket.More importantly to me is the lack of scoring depth the last month or so. Bryce is going in the right direction (finally) but we spend too many minutes with little to no scoring threats on the court. Todd, Taylor, Tyson, are all fine young players but they arent ready to be a scoring threat, especially against a team like GU. Throw the fact that Voldi, Kevin and Bobby are shooting lower percentages than they would like, to me it just seems like there is no where to turn for buckets.GU went on like a 22-2 run in the second half and I was watching the rotations wondering where we expected to produce points.

Anyway, GU is rarely a good game to guage your team against, so I will hope the team learned, grew, and will be ready for the next couple weeks. GO PILOTS

pilotdad1 wrote:Anyway, GU is rarely a good game to guage your team against, so I will hope the team learned, grew, and will be ready for the next couple weeks. GO PILOTS

I surely agree with this. But my bout of pessimism is based more on the 3-7 conference record than solely on the GU result. Through the lens of our conference performance so far, I am seeing last night's showing as part of a downward trajectory over the past several weeks -- not just an isolated instance of running into the GU buzz saw.